Day 41 – On to Carcassonne

At 7am the next morning I was awoken by voices outside my camper. I looked out of the window and saw the Hitler and his buddy inspecting the gate to the river. The gate that was about 3 meters away from the electric box. The electric box with my cable hanging out of it. The very same cable delivering electric to my camper. Electric I was stealing! “Arse” I thought, then fell back to sleep.

Change of heart?

The strange thing is that as I go about my daily business that morning, the Hitler guy is being really nice! He said ‘Bonjour’ twice! Well I’m not one to hold a grudge so I put the heated debate of yesterday behind me and said ‘bonjour’ back. He didn’t even mention the electric.

Maybe he’s one of these one of these guys that assumes all outsiders are potential troublemakers but come the morning when no-one has gone missing, no-one has been raped and nothing has been pillaged, then thinks ‘ah.. maybe he’s not so bad after all!’. I did however notice the guy with the moustache regarding suspiciously from over by the sanitary block. In fact he’s been there since first thing when I got up. When I look directly at him, he pretends to wash his hands or something, or walk up and down for a bit. Now it’s possible he’s just taking an interest in my camper but I suspect its far more likely that they did clock the electric cable and the boss guy has said to him, don’t let the outsider drive anywhere without paying for it!

The stand off

Of course I have no intention of doing so now. I would never force a confrontation unless I was absolutely certain I was in the right. And here, so far, I wasn’t. Still I’m gonna make him sweat a bit. I walk over to him, ‘Bonjour’ I said. He looks very nervous. ‘Bonjour’ he says. So we stood there looking at each other for what seemed like ages then he shifted his gaze back to the sanitary block. I said ‘You can take a closer look if you like’. He came over and regarded the vehicle as I packed it up. He even cracked a bit of a smile... at least I think thats what it was.

Scott and Gretchen

“Well isn’t that simply the most wonderful thing” a well spoken English voice said from behind. I was was standing on the bonnet fixing on the cover and looked around to see a 60+ English lady standing in the road with her hands on her hips! “I always wanted a Landrover with a roof tent but my husband made us buy a caravan!” she said with a slight element of disgust. “Bet you never seen one quite like this I said” and invited her over to inspect the log burner etc. The guy with the moustache had retreated to the sanitary block again to wash his hands I think.

Gretchen and Scot are from Arundle in Sussex. “Ah.. I used to go to the castle there as a kid” I said. Scot was originally from LA, but Gretchen didn’t like it there. They have a house in France too. During the conversation it transpired that I am a computer guy... “you must come over and meet Scot”, she said. “You see, we have bought this internet dongle from ‘Orange’ and we can’t get it to work and we can’t find anyone to help us!!! Its cost us a small fortune”. I informed them I had some experience in the matter.

So with the camper all packed up I went to their caravan which was just two plots down from mine for a chinwag. It also gives me an excuse to make the guy with the moustache wait longer before... (as he believes) he is gonna have to rugby tackle me on my way out.
So I help them as best I could and got an invitation to pop in either their French place or Arundle when I’m home... “its right by the castle” she says, “bring your girlfriend, she’ll love it”. Ah!.. best find one first then! It seems I’m getting quite a lot of invitations. The English love bumping into their fellow countryman abroad. And I was right about there being more English here. As soon as you get away from the sea you see a lot more. Logical really, we are an island right? We’ve got bored of the sea, we come to France to see something else!

So I left Scot and Gretchens, and went to the office to pay 2 euro 90 for my electric. I explained to the Hilter guy that I paid for the plot yesterday but not the electric. He was smiling and gave a dismissive hand wave and mumbled something which I interpreted as “oh really? I didn’t realise... it hardly seems important but thank you, now let me write you a receipt... just in case someone tries to tackle you on the way out...”. He even stood by the gate and waved at me as I left. It’s a strange old carry on!

I left and headed to Carcassonne. Only 20 odd Km away, Carcassonne was something I was really looking forward to! My expectations and been set high by everything I had seen so far and I knew Carcassonne was going to raise the bar quite a bit higher!